Grace report: Whistleblower says Farrelly Commission was 'a complete waste of time'

The commission was established in 2017 to investigate the care and protection of 'Grace' and others in a former foster home in the south-east, which had been the subject of abuse allegations.

A whistleblower in the ‘Grace’ case said he told Simon Harris to shut down the Farrelly Commission in 2019, over concern it was a “complete waste of time”.

The commission published its 2,000-page report into the case on Tuesday following eight years of inquiry.

The final bill is estimated to reach about €20m. The report has been criticised by opposition politicians and some Government backbenchers.

Meanwhile, Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection called the report “quite impenetrable”.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC said key questions she had around Grace’s care and disability services in the south-east were “not adequately” addressed by the report.

Grace is the pseudonym of a woman now in her 40s who has been in the care of the State all her life. Grace has profound intellectual disabilities and is non-verbal. She resided with Family X between the ages of 10 and 30, a period spanning 1989 until her move to residential care in 2009.

The commission was established in 2017 to investigate the care and protection of 'Grace' and others in a former foster home in the south-east, which had been the subject of abuse allegations.

It ultimately found Grace had been neglected and there was a lack of oversight for her care. However, it said it was not satisfied the evidence established she had been subjected to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse.

Whistleblower Iain Smith, an experienced social worker in the HSE, said he first raised his concerns in 2007.

He said he did this after Grace’s mother called his colleague to check how her daughter was doing in foster care — which should have stopped when she was 18.

He said he conducted a “deep read line-by-line” of Grace’s file and allegations of child sexual abuse in the foster placement “going back quite a long way”.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, Mr Smith recalled when he visited Grace and her foster mother. 

My colleague and I we were just horrified at the foster carer and some of the comments that she made. 

He said this included the foster mother saying Grace thought she was 16, despite being an adult with a learning disability and a mental age of between one or two years.

He added: “So, these were grossly inappropriate things that the carer was saying.” 

Mr Smith said he then wrote a “very long report” with recommendations and names of other children that had been through the care of the foster family.

However, he said a lot of “shenanigans and intrigue” followed before Grace was eventually moved out of the home in 2009.

Mr Smith, who said he gave 27 full days of evidence to the commission, raised concerns about the process in a letter to then-health minister Simon Harris in May 2019.

He said Mr Harris, now Tánaiste, was told the commission was a “complete waste of time” and should be shut down.

“I wrote to Simon Harris in May 2019 saying the whole thing should be shut down because it was obvious to me then — and I told him then — that it was like I described to him, as a boondoggle, a complete waste of time, a project that is going absolutely nowhere.

“And I could see that very clearly way back then. So when this report came out yesterday it followed on from the previous reports that were issued, which I did read in detail, and they were a complete waste of time.

So when this report came out, it was no surprise at all to me that it followed on from the previous report in being fundamentally of no use whatsoever.

Mr Smith said the ‘Grace’ case should not be characterised as a series of institutional failures.

“This case was a long-running intrigue in which many, many different parties were involved over a long period of time.

“An intrigue is an entanglement. I mean, sort of ‘hair all tangled up’ is literally the read of that word — and that’s what this was.

“And trying to re-characterise this as somehow institutional failures is a fundamental error, not just at the Farrelly Commission, but also of other reports as well.” 

Mr Smith said being a whistleblower had a “big toll” on him financially and emotionally, adding it had also affected his family.

He said it also acted as a “strong deterrent” to whistleblowers in Ireland: “The State can crush you, the state will try to crush you.” 

The commission said it would not be responding to press queries about its reports.